As you might know Han and I invest a lot of time and money visiting lock related fairs all over the globe. Huge investments, but they pay off. Because of it, our LockCon (formerly known as Dutch Open) attracts a lot of international attention and certainly does not go unnoticed in the ‘real’ lock(smith)world. I think it is fair to say it bridges the gap between the locksport community and the ‘professional’ lock(smith) community.
We are currently negotiating a deal to have LockCon hosted outside the Netherlands in 2010! That is right: maybe there is a sponsor that is willing to host LockCon and it’s famous international lockpick championships (lockpicking / impressioning / safe combo dialing). If we can pull it off it will be really spectacular and a big breakthrough for all of us. And if we can not pull it off we will put our energy in organizing the event in Amsterdam in 2010 (although there are a few other options left as well). But we have good faith to be able to come out with some spectacular news in the weeks to come …
My first priorities now are the impressioning championships in Hamburg this weekend. I will have to defend my title against some friends who really believe it is time to bring it back to Germany. And rumor has my friends have been practicing a bit too ….
But so have we (yes, ‘we’: some other Toool members also are into impressioning a lot lately). My gut feeling says the record time of five minutes and thirteen seconds will be smashed, and we might even be looking at times in the three minute range! (depending a bit on how many ‘long pins’ there are in the lock).
I will make sure to bring my watch ….